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TOPICAL BUDGET 251-2 [Main Title]

Summary: I. Newsreel item on inmates at "The Crippleage," a London hospital, making paper flowers for Queen Alexandra's Rose Day, June 1916.
II. Newsreel item on the Brusilov Offensive in Russia, June 1916.
III. Sports of 1/6th Kent and 1/7th Kent Field Companies, Royal Engineers, at Maidenhead, June 1916.
IV. Newsreel item on former stage actresses working in a munitions factory, London, June 1916.
V. Newsreel item on Generals Dubail and Parreau inspecting the French Military College at Vincennes, June 1916.

Description: The inmates are all women, at least some permanently invalided. They work at tables with paints and paper making the flowers.
Columns of Austro-Hungarian prisoners of war march, escorted by Russian horsemen, through city streets well behind the lines. General Alexei Brusilov poses with his staff outside his headquarters. An old lady gets in the way of the shot, hesitating, and is ushered through.
The sports include a tug-of-war on horseback, followed by wrestling on horseback, and take place in an open field.
The actresses, none of them identified, work using machine tools and assembling fuses (note the "BSA" lettering on the factory wall).
The film is jumbled, and cuts between scenes of the two generals and their parties inspecting cadets. This is followed by a long marchpast by French troops, including a Marine battalion.

Notes: Production: see IWM 651a for production details
Summary: the captions on the third item are marked as issue 251-1. This is believed to be an error
Remarks: it is most unlikely that any channel for film was open for film to travel from central Russia to London within fifteen days of the start of the Brusilov Offensive, and the newsreel is probably stock film from an earlier date